A Red Christmas
by Karkadinn
Summary: As Drake and Sullivan try to rescue some orphaned kyrie children in the path of an Anubian wolf assault, they discover that you can bring Christmas to Valhalla, but war doesn't respect holidays.


A Red Christmas **This story was originally posted around Christmas on a Heroscape fan site. Said site has become defunct, and while it quickly spawned a successor, I never got around to uploading the fic a second time.** **This story contains minor tie-ins with my serials from the Codex magazine, but is hopefully perfectly enjoyable without the extra reading material. In addition, as is my wont for my Heroscape fanfiction, I've sprinkled in a number of custom units created by various community members. Darkspade's Frosty the Snowminion, Truth's Shaithis, and HEH's Lily all make appearances. A mythological creature is vaguely implied (a minor tie-in to the Codex stories). All other characters are either of my own creation or property of Hasbro, and I trust everyone to be able to tell which is which. All customs can be found in the galleries, indexed forum threads, and blogs of .**

**The title is inspired in part by a line from Futurama from one of the robot Santa episodes.**

**The ending in this story is partially inspired by the 'Jabberwocky' epilogue in the Ranma ½ fanfic, Ill Met By Twilight. The story can be found here (/mike/imbs.html) if anyone's interested. I highly recommend it for anyone who's a fan of dark, suspenseful stories.**

Dead leaves crunched under their feet steadily. More loudly at Drake's booted, masculine steps, but quite noticeably at Raelin's, too. It always felt odd, to him, to be walking alongside her in conversation, instead of walking _below_ her as she flew through the skies. He was more used to the latter, seeing as how it was her normal mode of movement in battle. But they weren't in battle _all_ the time when they were around each other.

Just most of it.

Tonight they were stretching their legs together after a supper of tasty but unidentifiable stew (Drake had, personally, not yet acquired a curiosity strong enough to ask what was in most Kyrie recipes), appreciating the rare moment in between patrols, missions, and other military duties to simply amble about as they pleased. Drake kept expecting Utgar to attack any moment, just to spoil the mood, but so far their luck had held.

Not that there was any chance of there actually being an attack on a fort this insignificant, realistically speaking. And if one _were_ to come, it certainly wouldn't come through the gravelly, winding hiking trail that lead through woods thicker than a porcupine's quills. But Drake kept his grappling gun slung on his back and his sword at his side, and Raelin had her spear over one shoulder. Just in case.

"I wouldn't think your people would need paths like this, being able to fly and all," he commented idly, breaking the comfortable silence between them.

Armored shoulders shrugged, wings rippling faintly. "Even we get tired of flight, sometimes. It can be exhausting to do for a long time, if there's no cooperative updrafts. Besides, it's good to keep the legs fit, in case your wings are wounded in battle."

Drake chuckled softly. That kind of response was just like her. "Always the practical one." "Complaining?" "Nope." There was another silence, shorter than the last, before Drake spoke another idle thought. "It's in the coldest season for Valhalla, right? I kinda wish there was some snow." She blinked, looking mildly bemused. "Why? When you can't fly, I would think it nothing but a nuisance." "It's part of the traditional imagery. Crisp white snow, icicles, presents wrapped up all shiny... tis the season to give to each other, since Mother Nature ain't givin' us any slack." "The season to give what? Is this another one of your odd human traditions?" She sounded amused. He couldn't blame her. The last human tradition he'd told her about had been the Easter bunny, and anyone who didn't find that silly was loopier than a Slinky. "Anything! And yeah, but it's a good one, I think. One special day in the middle of winter, we'd all cut down pine trees and set 'em indoors, and decorate 'em with all sorts of baubles, and load wrapped up presents for friends and family underneath. And then we'd all open the presents... especially the children... and lots of fun would be had by all. Especially the children." "A tree? Indoors? With things stuck in its branches?" The faint smirk on her lip, the sort of smile one would give to a child, was not to be ignored. "I know, I know, it's odd, but _good_. Trust me." "Do you miss it?" Drake was quiet for a moment, thinking over his words before responding. Aside from Jandar, no one ever asked him about his life back on Earth, and he'd never offered to tell, and it was a fine arrangement for all concerned. But Raelin was, in her own straitlaced warrioress way, trying to get to know him better, and he owed her an honest answer. But not one that would drop more angst on her than either of them would be comfortable with. "A little, maybe," he confessed with a nod and a wry grin. "I guess some things are just engrained into you, just by being a part of your life for long enough. All my life, every winter, there'd be the trees indoors, and the shiny presents, and the fancy lights, and stories of elves and fat men dropping down chimneys, and now that it's all gone... yeah, it does kind of hit me that I'm _really_ not home anymore." And Raelin laughed a genuine, hearty laugh, a throaty, clear sound. It made him grin just a little bit more to hear it for the first time. "Of the elves and fat men I won't even _begin_ to inquire. But perhaps, sometime, though you're far from home... a little bit of home can be brought to you. If you don't think it unwise." Drake glanced sideways at her. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to scheme something, Raelin." "Now, now, Sergeant. I don't know much of your _human_ women, but one thing I will tell you of _Kyrie_ women... it is our prerogative to keep our thoughts veiled from plain sight." Drake snorted. "_That's_ one thing that hasn't changed, at any rate," he grumbled. "No matter _what_ planet I'm on, the women _always_ like to be vague and mysterious." And his comment, slightly bitter though it was, earned yet another spout of laughter from his Kyrie companion. -- Another dawn. Another day. Another mission... Drake frowned slightly as he passed forbidding door after forbidding door, wondering why the fort's commander had asked him down here for the briefing. It felt odd, getting a mission from someone other than Jandar directly. But they couldn't always afford to trek all the way back to their primary stronghold all the time, it was simply inefficient. Still, he didn't like it; he supposed he'd gotten spoiled by Jandar. But what was really troubling him was why such a small fort had such a large, seemingly endless network of tunnels dug down into the hard gray dirt, complete with solidly-built, menacing doors, cast-iron furnishings, and regular lanterns for illumination. It was as though the fort itself were only the tip of something much greater below the surface, and Drake had thought that he would have heard about something this massive before actually walking right into it. But apparently the lines of communication weren't as free of red tape as he'd assumed. Who knew where all these passages led? They could go anywhere. The recruitments _were_ getting odder and odder lately, so perhaps Jandar had finally gotten his hands on a race of mole-men or something. Straight forward, down to the end, and then take a right, he'd been told. So that was what he did, even though it took enough walking to make him nervous about ever seeing the sun again. The fact that about half the doors had eerily indentifiable noises coming out through the thick wood didn't help relax him any, either.

Still, he _did_ get to the end finally. The door he was to go through looked just like all the others, save it was open a crack, allowing a flicker of lantern-light to escape.

The sounds that came through put Drake in mind of a dozen huge snakes being poked at with sticks.

Nervously, he knocked at the door.

"Enter," an unfamiliar, absentmindedly harsh voice commanded.

Even _more_ nervously, he opened the door wider, and slipped through, instinctively falling into a position roughly equivalent to that of a soldier's at ease pose.

It wasn't a room so much as a large pit, and Drake stumbled and nearly skidded down to the bottom before he caught his footing on the incline. A single lantern suspended by a wire from the ceiling hung down directly in the center of the pit to provide lighting. Piled around the pit in various lumps of hardened dirt that were somewhat evened out, were countless buckets, some empty, some filled to the brim with what looked to be very large animal fangs. At the very bottom, cloaked in shadow, was a mass of hissing, enraged snakes that struck at an almost equally shadowy figure that squatted close by them, a pocket at its feet. Or tried to strike at, anyway... they seemed to stop just a few inches short each time, apparently due to some restraints he couldn't make out in the dimness. The figure itself was tall but emaciated, male, presumably (it never was wise to be _too_ set in one's assumptions in Valhalla) human, crowned with coal-black hair, and dressed in several layers of ornate-looking, equally black clothes that looked like they'd seen better days a long, long time ago.

As Drake watched, confused, the man stretched a long, bony hand over to the nearby pail and dropped a fang in, with a loud plunk as it hit the metallic bottom.

"Sir?" he asked hesitantly.

The figure turned around and looked up, and Drake got a view of the man's face. It was a shade too sharp and hard to be handsome, but the truly unnerving thing about it was the stare. It was incredibly... intent, and reminded Drake a little of Me-Burq-Sa, from the side glances he'd gotten at the Marro warrior during his battles against Utgar's forces. And also, for some reason, it reminded him of a very, very hungry person looking at a five-course meal. But the voice, when the man spoke again, was friendly enough, despite its gravelly quality.

"Ah, Sergeant Alexander. A pleasure. I am Lord Shaithis, the commander of this fort. You will pardon me if I work while we speak, I hope."

With that, the man turned back to the snakes, and lifted up what seemed to be a nightmarish version of a dentist's pliers, all half-rusty iron and sharp pointy bits, with dark stains on the end. Before Drake could even think to ask what 'work' was going on, the pliers lunged towards one of the snakes, grabbed hold of a fang, and twisted and yanked, procuring a tooth, some blood, and a very angry chorus of hisses from the serpents. The blood was caught in a leather canteen that was held in Lord Shaithis's other hand, a hand that appeared to tremble ever so slightly. Drake winced as he watched the tooth plunk into the bucket along with all the rest, and then stared at the canteen in disgust.

So many questions. Where to begin? With the obvious ones, he supposed.

"With all due respect, lord, That doesn't seem very kind to the snakes. What do we need snake teeth for? And, uh, why are _you_ doing this? Doesn't seem like a task appropriate for the local garrison commander to me."

Grab, twist, yank, drip, plunk. A dozen enraged hisses. Lord Shaithis didn't even bother to look up when answering.

"These snakes have most... unusual properties, that will be helpful in the war. I do this task because my personal gifts suit me best to it. The average soldier would have lost a hand by now, or worse, I regret to say. And also... it allows me the opportunity to sample a... most _rare_ beverage... that I have great need of in any case." The hand with the canteen in it raised it up towards him as if in a toast, before Lord Shaithis put it to his own lips and swallowed repeatedly until there was apparently nothing left in the container, letting out a slow, hissing sigh afterwards.

Drake couldn't help but grimace in revulsion. What kind of creature _was_ this, this Shaithis? Unfortunately for him, Lord Shaithis caught the expression, and chuckled raspily.

"Please, Sergeant. You are very far from your Earth-home, and I would ask you not to judge me for being alien to your human... sensibilities. I have heard great things of you, and would be saddened to learn that your prejudice towards those slightly different from yourself outweighed even your loyalty towards our mutual general."

Memories of the _last_ mission Drake had had, rescuing and recruiting a being far creepier than Lord Shaithis, drifted through his mind, and he could have kicked himself for being so close-minded. "I'm sorry, sir. I know Jandar has a new recruiting strategy to let him end the war once and for all... it's just taking a little time getting used to it, is all. Normally, I receive my orders directly from him, and in more, ah, conventional surroundings."

Grab, twist, yank, drip, plunk. Hisses.

Lord Shaithis nodded amiably. "Yes, yes, I'm aware that you're used to being one to directly go up as high in the chain of command as you wish. But Jandar is busy these days, after all, with _many_ new soldiers and champions to tend to, and now he relies on you to exercise a little more... independence. I trust you won't let him down."

"Never, sir!" Drake said proudly.

"Good. Well, then, Sergeant, let me get you up to speed on your latest mission." Grab, twist, yank, drip, plunk. Hisses. Not a single drop of blood fell that the canteen failed to catch, Drake noticed. "Our scouts indicate that Utgar's forces may be making a minor foray through the fields to the west. Unfortunately, that puts them uncomfortably close to a Kyrie safehouse for children and pacifists. Utgar's forces would not treat them well if they happened across them, as you can imagine. You and Johnny Sullivan are to head out there, and organize an evacuation of the safehouse." Drake hadn't even known that Sullivan was here, but it was a happy thing nonetheless. He always trusted the sharpshooter to watch his back, and the two of them made a good team, complimenting each other's strengths and shoring up each other's weaknesses. "You will lead them back here, where we can defend them against any small skirmishes Utgar's people might make in this territory. This is to be, primarily, a _diplomatic_ mission." Grab, twist, yank, drip, plunk. More hisses. "You will have no backup other than Sullivan, and it is expected that you will need no more than that in any case. If you stumble across a significantly dangerous force, you will engage in basic reconnaissance so long as it puts none of your charges in danger, and then retreat. Your highest priority is the protection of the children, of course. The journey should take no more than a day both ways, so gear yourself up accordingly. Any questions?"

Well! This was the sort of thing Drake liked. No mess, no fuss, no grays or moral quandaries. Just a nice, good, old-fashioned rescue the innocents mission. Lord Shaithis couldn't be _that_ bad, whatever the man's drinking habits or dentistry obsessions.

"No, sir! I'll get ready right away." No point in delaying the trip. Who knew when Utgar's monstrosities would strike?

"Glad to see your enthusiasm, Sergeant. You may leave, then."

Drake had one foot out of the door before he paused and turned around to voice one final thought amid the hisses of the tormented snakes. "Um, lord?"

"Yes, Sergeant?"

"Couldn't you at least give them some... pain killers, or something?"

It had to be a trick of the shadows, but Drake could have sworn that Lord Shaithis looked back up with an incredibly condescending sneer that revealed very white teeth that seemed to be somehow... wrongly-shaped. "Of course, Sergeant. I'll begin making inquiries in that direction right away."

Unnerved for reasons he couldn't quite name, Drake nodded jerkily and retreated with quick steps. He would be glad to see the sky again.

--

The sustenance for the trip was hardtack, jerky, and nuts, along with some whiskey Sullivan had generously offered to share. Not too appetizing, but that didn't bother Drake any. The slightly hilly, short-grassed fields were easy marching, the weather was pleasantly brisk without being freezing, and he was on a mission that most likely wouldn't even have him _see_ any enemy forces, let alone _fighting_ them. And unlike his last mission, he had someone to converse with to pass the time. All in all, it was about as pleasant as military missions ever got. The first few hours had flown by like springtime sparrows.

"You know why they call me Shotgun, right Drake?" Sullivan was saying with that particular kind of mischevious grin that was only used when men were talking about things female ears would burn to hear.

"Because your 'shot' sprays everywhere instead of where it's aimed at?" Drake came back, with a matching grin.

"Ow! Maybe so, but at least my _range_ is better'n yours..."

"Actually, last time I checked, my hook reached further than your... hey, what was that?" Drake interrupted himself, eyes scanning the horizon suspiciously. He could have _sworn_ he'd heard something howling. Did they have timber wolves in Valhalla?

"Eh? I think it was a bird. Cool yer heels, Alexander! You're too paranoid. There's nothin' out he-... oh, damn."

As they reached the top of the next hill, they both stared with mutual distaste at the man-sized, furry figure that was scampering through the grass, sometimes on all fours, sometimes on two legs. The shape was unmistakable, even at this distance.

"One of Khosumet's people," Drake growled, vaguely aware that tiny flakes of snow were starting to fall from a rapidly graying sky. "And he's heading in the same direction _we_ are. Looks like an advance scout. Our intelligence must've been slightly off on the timing of the attack. We'll have to hurry!" And with that, they broke off into a run.

"Can you hit that thing from here?" Drake asked, shaking his head to dislodge the snow that was starting to pile up with remarkable rapidity given that the skies had been totally clear just moments ago. It was a good thing they were exerted themselves this much, or they'd be feeling the cold more.

"I'm not sure, it's a bit iffy. Be better if God didn't decide to shake His dandruffy head all of a sudden. Danged winged people planet, don't know no natural weather like back in America..."

"I don't think we're going to be able to catch it," Drake finally said after a few more moments of moving as fast as they could make their legs go. "You'll just have to take a shot at it."

"If you say so, Sergeant." With that, Sullivan lifted up the smaller of his two guns, squinted an eye as he took aim, and fired. With a dramatic ca-crack, the shot...

...missed entirely.

"Damn," both men muttered in accidental chorus.

Their luck was with them, though. The Anubian Wolf lifted up its head from the ground, snarling, and started charging straight in their direction as soon as it caught sight of them, thin streams of drool hanging down from a ravenously wide-open fanged maw.

"Well, that works too," Sullivan commented, mildly surprised.

"These things really aren't too bright, are they. Like they don't care about anything besides eating people. Lucky for us we're hard to chew," Drake said, watching the creature move steadily with startling speed, but without any attempts at evasive maneuvers whatsoever. "Sullivan?" He winced as the gunslinger took careful aim with his shotgun. This wouldn't be pretty.

BLAM.

And, true to Drake's expectations, it wasn't at all pretty, unless one was a connoisseur of blood and guts spread out over newly-fallen snow.

"Right then. Let's get a move on. This one _had_ to be just a forerunner; they _always_ travel in packs."

"I always feel kinda bad about killin' those critters," Sullivan remarked with a sigh, pulling his hat down over his face a bit as they went into a mode of movement somewhere between a march and a high-speed jog, footsteps slipping slightly in the snow every few paces. "Reminds me of the time I had t'put down my ol' pup-dog Sassy. She was the sweetest thing you ever laid eyes on..."

"Remind me to get you a puppy sometime, Sullivan," Drake replied dryly.

"See, that's the thing that separates us from the animals, right there. _People_ like to _give_. _Critters_ only _get_."

"Yeah, I guess. Those Anubians don't do anything other than try to get food, don't they? Greedy fleaballs. Not very seasonal of 'em! You think it's Christmas back on Earth, Johnny?"

"I dunno, but just in case it is, merry Christmas and all that cow dung."

"Same to you, pal."

--

It was mostly dead.

Mostly, but not _entirely_.

And such is the endless hunger of an Anubian Wolf, that _mostly_ dead isn't quite dead _enough_, when the scent of man-flesh still lingers on its nostrils.

Accordingly, the beast tried to clamber to its feet, eyes fixed in the direction the two men had went towards. When it was only half-standing, it lost its shaky footing, and fell sprawling in the snow with a pained yelp. It realized it hadn't the strength to stand, walk, or run, especially not with the snow climbing steadily higher.

So instead, it crawled, leaving about a third of its intestines and various other internal organs behind it.

It crawled in a trail of blood and other, even less pleasant bodily fluids, claws flexing constantly as though it could pluck the unseen men from the very air and deliver them to its mouth. Its tongue lolled out as it drooled in anticipation with a desire far stronger than the mere, negligible pain of being near death.

It would catch them. And eat them. And they would be soooo delicious, and the masters would be pleased and let it eat the other, smaller man-things when it found them, too. The small ones would be tender, succulent, and be too weak to hurt it.

It just had to keep on moving... and it would get them eventually...

Ears that were sharp enough to make out the individual wingbeats of a hummingbird perked up at new sounds. Many sounds it did not know, and ignored in favor of the ones it could understand. Animal sounds, large animals like itself. Metal things making odd metal sounds, the sort that it associated with men and winged-men and the masters. And a man-voice. Very deep. Very near. Very... happy.

"_Weeeellll, hmmmmm... what have we HERE?_"

It stopped moving and looked up through eyes glazed and blurring. Was this more food? Or one of the masters? It couldn't tell, it couldn't see... it tried to blink to clear its vision, but that didn't help. All it could see now was a very large red and pink blur. Its ears caught only the sound of heavy, crunching footsteps through the snow approaching toward it. And Its nose, ever the most reliable of its senses, caught a strange scent: rotting man-things mixed with ash and fire and many, many other smells it couldn't even begin to identify. It lifted up one clawed hand with a warning snarl, uncertain how to react. The masters would be angry if it tried to eat one of their own. And then it would be denied the juicy man-flesh it had hoped for this day.

The blur leaned closer, close enough that it could make out a dirty white beard, long and tangled and stained with blood and other flesh-juices. With a weak, gasping snarl, it snapped at the blur through the beard and at the throat, a place that experience had taught it to be a good place to bite man-things. To its dismay, a strong, hammy, large hand batted its jaws away and sent it reeling back down to the snow, headfirst. The enemy was too strong to fight, but it had so much _fat_ on it! It would be a _delicious_ meal. Growling in frustration, it lunged a second time, this time going for the legs to sever the stringy bits that man-things used to walk with.

Its foe simply stepped back, and it crashed into the snow, writhing, helpless yet still oh so very hungry. Its ferocity changed to a piteous whimper. Perhaps the blur-thing was with the masters, and would feed it. It whimpered again, and wagged its tail in forlorn, desperate hope.

The blur leaned down over it. "Naughty... or nice?" the blur-thing asked in its deep, deep man's voice, with a faintly hungry tone.

It could understand hunger, and so it understood the person, a little. The person was hungry for something too. What did _he_ hunger for?

"Naughty, I think," the blur-thing continued, with a soft chuckle. "Ohhhh, yeeessss. Very, VERY naughty." One meaty hand reached down to run fingers like sausages over its head. It didn't understand this, but it was too weak now to try and eat those tasty fingers, and it could only keep still and hope the blur-thing would have pity and feed it.

The blur-thing leaned further still, until the its face was an inch away from its own. It drooled profusely, wanting to sink its teeth into the person's face, and rip out the tongue and swallow it whole. But it had no strength to do anything more than drool. Was the blur-thing going to feed it or not? Why did he have to _talk_ so much?

"Do you know what naughty little wolf-pups get?" he whispered warmly in its ear, fat fingers gripping its skull with painful, vise-like pressure.

It could not answer, and did not even truly understand the question, but it wagged its tail frantically and whimpered more. Food! It needed _food_! Why couldn't the stupid man _see_ that?! The man was holding up a black blur... a rocky thing... in the other fist, just in front of its face, but this was not something it could eat. It was just a rock.

"_They get COAL_!" the blur-thing shouted in great merriment, and shoved the black rock into its mouth with jubilant violence.

It tried to snarl, but choked on the dust falling from the rock, which was being pushed down more and more... jaws opening wider... jaws hurting...

There was a crack, and its jaws were suddenly useless to it, unable to even twitch. The blur-thing was pushing the rock with agonizing force down its throat, and it swallowed out of desperate reflex, trying to take some of the enemy's hand with it, but its teeth were no good to it now, and would not obey its commands to bite and tear and chew.

And then, just when it thought it was over, the man lifted up a second black rock, even larger than the first.

And after that, another.

And after _that_, another still.

And another, and another, and another...

Even had it been able to vocalize its torment before its inevitable death, the great, deep belly laughter of the blur-thing would have drowned the sound out utterly.

"_HO HO HO HO HOOOOO_!"

--

The snow had only gotten worse.

Ridiculously so, ridiculously fast.

Before long, they were burrowing more than walking, and the falling snowflakes formed a constant barrier to their vision. The gloom of late evening didn't help things, either. They could only keep going blindly forward, hoping they hadn't blindly went past their destination.

"There's no _way_ we're going to get them through this if it doesn't clear up and melt soon!" Sullivan yelled, straining to make himself heard over winds as violently bitter as banshee screams.

"I know!" Drake yelled back. "We'll just have to hole up with them for a while until it passes! At least Utgar's people'll be halted, too!"

"Unless those wolves of his can run on snow!"

Drake grimaced and smacked his companion lightly, dislodging some snow from his head. "Don't jinx it!"

Then he saw it.

Like the fabled light at the end of the dark tunnel, faintly through the flurry of white, there was a yellow-orange glow, faint but definite. Drake started to ask Sullivan if he saw it, but then paused, seeing Sullivan apparently ready to ask the same to him. They shared a grin of mutual relief and simultaneously began to sweep the snow away with their arms more quickly, confident that their stay in the frozen not-so-wonderland was at an end.

The light resolved itself into a dozen different lights at various heights. Further trudging finally revealed that the lights were shining through thick ornamental windows of orange stained glass, which granted the orange tint. But it wasn't until they were literally up against it that they could finally tell that the building was a very tall, castle-like manor of elegantly-carved stone blocks. They worked their way around a wall and a small maze of well-kept hedges before figuring out where the front door was, a high, stately oaken affair. Eager to be done with the hellish weather, they both rapped on the door with all their might.

"Sergeant Drake Alexander and Johnny Sullivan of General Jandar's company, if you please!" Drake shouted, hoping to reassure the occupants that they weren't spies of Utgar or something similarly sinister.

"Yeah, what he said! Now wouldja let us in before we freeze to death?!" Sullivan hollered straight after, earning a brief glare from Drake.

After a long moment, the door opened inwards creakily, letting in about two feet of snow in addition to the chilly soldiers, who practically fell inside in their desperation for anything vaguely resembling warmth and shelter.

Teeth chattering, Drake took in the pale white marbled floors with streaks of grey running throughout, the rosy, carved and polished wooden doors and walls, the scattering of expensive-looking vases and statuettes, and the wide stairway in the back of the foyer, leading up a very long way.

No doubt about it, this was a pretty ritzy safehouse.

And standing before them, doorknob still clasped in one hand, was a little girl of about eight years of age, messy black hair doing a good job of hiding most of her face. No wings were on her back; she was as human as they were. A rather quaint, British dress of blue with a white frilly apron adorned her slightly chubby figure, and the apron was stained with red splots.

Drake and Sullivan exchanged mutually alarmed expressions with each other over the red stains, but before they could do more than that, a Kyrie woman of raven-like wings, glossy purple robes, even glossier black hair, and pale, lithe figure flew down the stairs to land in front of the child.

"Lily, what have I told you about opening the door to strangers?" she scolded. "Oh, and look at you, your apron's a mess... Elzra didn't keep an eye on you during finger-painting like she was supposed to, did she? Go on, now, dear, get yourself cleaned up. I'll tend to our guests."

Lily padded off with quiet amiability on feet shod with oversized black tennis shoes, leaving Drake and Sullivan to deal with the nameless Kyrie woman, who was snapping the door shut this very moment, while shoving as much snow out as she could with one foot.

"Sorry about the snow, Miss-" Drake started with instinctive politeness, only to be cut off with the same sort of chattery decisiveness that the woman had directed towards the young girl.

"Silly of you to worry about a thing like that when you come in almost frozen to death, sirs!" She waved a hand negligently at their mild surprise. "Oh, yes, yes, Sergeant Alexander and Shotgun Sullivan, I've heard of you. Such famous war heroes, coming to rescue our little group of misfits... but it looks like you'll be cooling your heels, or warming them rather, with us for a while till the weather's done being ornery. Let me take your coats and packs, no, no trouble at all, come along to the dining room, we have a nice big fire and some blankets to warm you up, and I'll fix some good hot soup for you both, oh, don't mind Kal and Remi over there, they just can't seem to stay still for very long..."

And so, amidst a stream of verbiage neither of them could really keep up with, Drake and Sullivan were herded into a room dominated by a very long table and a very large stone fireplace, several large cuts of wood burning merrily away. They happily huddled as close to the flames as they could without getting burned, basking in the warm orange glow. Drake enjoyed the sensation so much after hours of numbness and cold that he barely had the senses to notice their host already leaving before they'd even had a chance to speak with her properly.

"Uh, Miss?" he called out before she'd gotten completely out of sight. "We don't even know your name."

Her pale blue eyes blinked at him as she turned back, then she grinned and bowed with deliberately overdone elegance. "Onlal, at your service, mighty heroes. Don't worry, I'll be back in a jiffy. I just need to brown the meat and chop up the..." her voice drifted off as she trotted away.

"Well. That was kinda strange, but I ain't complainin'," Sullivan commented, rubbing his hands and holding them palms-first towards the crackling fire.

Drake let out a sigh as he took off his helmet and stuck it on the corner of a chair carefully, not wanting to bang up the high-class furniture. "Well, that could've been worse. Wonder where everyone is. Seems pretty quiet."

Sullivan shrugged. "Looks like a pretty big place. Probably lotsa room for people."

Drake scratched his chin thoughtfully. "We should probably try to mingle a little once we're dried out, especially with the kids. It'll make leading them to the fort later on easier, they'll trust us more. And we'll need all the trust we can get to work through the snowstorm soon enough and quickly enough to be sure of staying ahead of the Anubians."

And it was that idea that led to the two of them, a half hour later, being in the middle of a room filled with chaotically creative Kyrie children splashing paint onto long scrolls of parchment with chubby wiggling fingers. It reminded Drake of kindergarten, only _his_ kindergarten had never been filled with so many wings. Due to the energetic nature of those wings' owners, cast-off feathers littered the furniture, floor, and scrolls. Between that and the paint, it was very messy and cluttered, but rather charmingly colorful, in an arts and crafts gone terribly wrong sort of way.

"We like to encourage them to play outside most of the time," Elzra explained with a motherly air as Drake watched Sullivan make friendly with one of the younger kids, a hyperactive girl prone to squealing and batting her brown-red wings at the air. "But we don't really have enough clothes to bundle everyone up warmly in the wintertime, so we try to get them into indoor activities then. Most of the scrolls you see here are from my uncle, he's a scribe. We made the inks ourselves from berries and a few other things we can find on our own."

"So you don't have an abundance of wealth to fund things with, then?" Drake asked, mildly surprised.

Elzra sighed and shook her head, wispy brown hair trailing in the air. "No, unfortunately not. This manor was abandoned a long time ago... its rightful line died out, and no one cared about it enough to take possession of it. We had a lot of fixing up to do when we first came here. But it was worth it. We have plenty of room here, and we can keep everyone safe... at least, from everything but the war."

Drake smiled wryly. "It's _our_ job to keep you safe from that. Don't worry. Utgar's people won't get close enough to even catch a scent of these kids."

"I hope so." They shared a comfortable silence for a moment, and snickered together when Sullivan ended up in an impromptu and very one-sided paint fight that resulted in him becoming tangerine from the shoulders up. Elzra drifted over to wash the paint off, and Drake found himself drawn to a shadowy corner with a single unusually quiet child who fingerpainted with almost meditative calm intensity.

Lily was the only one who didn't make any noise, other than the almost inaudible schlick-schlick of wet fingertips trailing paint over parchment. She didn't look up, she didn't speak, she didn't even make an expression. Just stared at her work in progress with big, round eyes and went on painting.

Onlal had explained that no one really knew how she'd gotten here. She'd just appeared one day, wandering aimlessly, and so they'd taken her in. Their best guess was a summoning from one of the generals gone awry. The girl wouldn't have survived long had it been Utgar who had summoned her, and Jandar would have taken care of her, so that left Ullar, Vydar, and Einar as likely suspects. They'd even checked her back just to make sure she wasn't a Kyrie with her wings cut off, but it had been smooth and unscarred. Lily was definitely human, but she never talked about herself. Onlal had confessed that she considered it a great accomplishment in a day to get Lily to say an entire sentence about anything at all, for that matter. Drake had thought that Lily must be very lonely in a place filled with people unlike herself, and this impression was only reinforced by what he was seeing right now. So he walked up behind her to look down at her picture, and try to strike a conversation.

Drake blinked. It was a very... odd... picture. Instead of using the paint to draw out the images, she had simply smeared colors in large semi-solid blocks, and left strategic blank gaps that in turn joined together to represent objects and people. Accordingly, each item was technically blank and colorless, but certain parts of them were outlined with differing colors for additional detail. The overall impression was somewhere between vaguely disturbing and strikingly, creatively pretty.

The paper streamed off to the left, forgotten as its artist moved on to a new section. There were dozens of blocks, each with their own subject matter. The current one was a pair of Kyrie playing tug of war with a thick, knotted rope. It was the rope that was being detailed the most; Lily was taking care to outline a multitude of colors with cautious, delicate taps of her fingers.

"Tug of war, huh? Who's winning?" he murmured softly to her in his best the-big-scary-adult-just-wants-to-be-your-friend tone.

She just kept painting, not even looking up. Not even the slightest change in expression to tell that she'd heard him.

He tried again.

"That's a pretty rope they've got."

"S'not a rope," she replied immediately, and added a little more red to the not-rope with her pink finger.

"What is it then?"

But it was no use, she'd gone back into her shell. Frowning a little in concentration, Drake squinted as he stared at the not-rope further, trying to make out the details through the odd art style and the seemingly random changes in the color of the outline.

The shape was certainly odd. It almost looked as though it had been cut in half on both ends, straight through the middle, so each person had two ropes to tug on that joined together at the center. And it was very red, with a lot of pink and a little white. And there was a large knob on one end that looked like it had moss on it. And so many little twisting, windy bits...

And then, something clicked in his brain and he saw the picture in a completely different way. It wasn't a rope or anything like that. It wasn't even an object. It was a person, legs and arms gripped by the opposing sides. Gutted, with the entrails spread out and winding all around the body and limbs. Bloody. Dying, not dead, because it was positioned so as to look like it still had the strength to move on its own. Tiny round mouth opened in an agonized wail.

His breath caught in his throat, and he blinked, slowly. When he opened his eyes again, it was just a rope.

Lily was looking at him, blank-faced, emerald eyes wide and puppyish.

He returned the gaze silently,then snapped out of it. What an idiot he was being. Of course a little kid wouldn't paint anything like that... it was all just a coincidence, helped along by his disturbingly cynical and morbid imagination. That was what he got for making a living by killing things. Ugh. No need to project it on to others, though.

Somehow he got the feeling that she knew exactly what he was thinking, but that was ridiculous too.

"D'you like it?" she asked with just a hint of pleading.

"It's terrific," he replied automatically with a grin he didn't feel. "You're very talented."

She eyed him with a narrow gaze, as if trying to ascertain the veracity of his words, then smiled hesitantly. "I do this a lot," she confided, with a suspicious glance at the other children. Sullivan was trying to juggle for them now. And the truly amusing thing was, he actually wasn't half bad at it. "_They_ won't let me play their games 'cause I can't fly."

"That's not very nice of them. I bet you're good at lots of games."

"Dun' want any stupid wings anyhow," she muttered, sloshing most of her hand into a bowl of red paint and then dragging it over her tug-of-war picture before shuffling the parchment over to a blank spot to start with something fresh.

Drake let his gaze linger on the now-ruined and abandoned picture for a moment. "Why'd you do that?"

"Wasn't good 'nough," she said so softly that he had to strain to catch the words.

"I thought it was pretty. You could have just forgotten about it and gone on to the next..."

"Fergettin' things dun make them ferget _you_. You gotta make 'em go 'way. Red makes 'em go 'way."

Drake tried to puzzle his way through the logic, then shrugged and gaze up. It'd been a long time since he'd been a kid, and he couldn't simplify his mind down to that level very easily anymore. He had the odd, disquieting feeling that she was actually saying something rather deep that he simply couldn't place into a context to understand.

He tried to get her to open up some more, but apparently her internal socialization quota had been filled for the day, because no matter what he said, or how nicely he said it, she didn't say another word to him. Finally he sighed a bit and gave up on her, moving on to another table with many kids at it. They were all eager to get to know him now that Sullivan had plied their youthful minds with tales of his 'heroics.'

"Did you really shoot your grappling hook right through the mean orange dragon's _wing_ one time?" one of them asked excitedly.

"Don't be stupid," an amusingly haughty girl said before Drake could reply, with a know-it-all air and hands on her hips. "Of _course_ not! Sergeant Alexander only hurts stuff when they're close to him so they get a chance to fight back, everyone knows that. To do otherwise would be disponderable."

"Dishonorable?" Drake suggested solemnly.

She blushed faintly. "Yeah. That."

"Izzit true that where you come from, fat men with toys jump down chimneys every winter?" another child asked, to the groaning disgust of his comrades.

Drake blinked and looked at Sullivan, who just smirked and gave a thumb's up.

Well, since the idea was already in their heads, he might as well roll with it...

"Yes. Yes, it is," Drake said with total seriousness. "Just one man, though... all dressed in red," and at this he was pleased to see he had caught even Lily's attention for the moment, "with a belly like a bowl full of jelly, and a huge white beard. And every year, he gives presents to the good little girls and boys who behave the rest of the year."

"What kind of presents?"

"How could he fit down a chimney if he's so fat?"

"How does he get up on the roof if he can't fly?"

"Or does he have wings like us?"

"Yeah!"

Drake was soon buried in questions from an enthusiastic audience, and he withheld a grin as he played along, glad to be able to introduce his favorite holiday to the children of his _new_ home planet.

And every once in a while, he'd wink slyly at Lily, as if the two of them were sharing a secret the rest of them wouldn't get.

And every once in a while, he caught her giggling behind her hands.

--

Elzra shivered and clutched herself as she hopped through the knee-high drifts of snow, hurrying as quickly as she could to get her task done so that she could get back inside where it was warm. The garden was partially enclosed, but some snow still got blown in anyway, and the storm didn't seem like it was planning to let up even though she'd given it a whole night of sleep to work out all its snowy desires. It was just cramped enough that flying would be more trouble than it was worth, even if walking had its own drawbacks.

She rounded a corner, saw how dishearteningly far away the tool shed was (very nearly the length of the entire mansion), and decided that drastic measures would be needed. Ugh. Why couldn't have Komthes left the shovel in one of the closets instead? It was where it belonged, technically, but that wasn't very comforting given that she very nearly needed a shovel just to get _to_ the tool shed.

Maybe if she tried to distract herself it wouldn't be so bad. Thinking back with a little smile to last night's human-centered festivities, she decided to sing one of the cute, silly little songs Sergeant Alexander had taught the children. Her voice was mediocre at best, but that didn't matter when she was the only one to hear.

_Up on the housetop_

_Reindeer pause_

_Out jumps good old Santa Claus_

_Down through the chimney_

_With lots of toys_

_All for the little ones_

_Christmas joys_

Giggling at the absurdity of it, she started to get into it and danced a little to the tune when she arrived at the chorus, in the carelessly impulsive way people dance when they know no one's looking.

_Ho, ho, ho!_

_Who wouldn't go?_

_Ho, ho, ho!_

_Who wouldn't go?_

_Up on the housetop_

_Click, click, click_

_Down through the chimney_

_With good Saint Nick_

Well, she did feel a _little_ warmer. She wondered if she was catching immaturity from the young ones from being around them so very long. If she was, she didn't mind it a jot. She only wished it would extend further and let her shave a few years off her figure as well.

_First comes the stocking_

_Of little Nell_

_Oh, dear Santa_

_Fill it well_

_Give her a dolly_

_That laughs and cries_

_One that will open_

_And shut her eyes_

Huh. That was odd. She could've sworn it sounded like someone was humming along with her singing, but there was clearly no one nearby, nor even a reasonable place where someone could be hiding, assuming they were the sort to do such a thing in such inhospitable weather. The cold was making her think crazy things. Shrugging it off, she hit the chorus loud and enthusiastically, happy to be only a few yards away from the shed by now.

_Ho, ho, ho!_

_Who wouldn't go?_

_Ho, ho, ho!_

_Who wouldn't go?_

_Up on the housetop_

_Click, click, click_

_Down through the chimney_

_With good Saint Nick_

There it was again. It sounded just like someone was humming. Frowning, she wrenched open the shed door, expecting to see a misbehaving child where children weren't supposed to be.

"Kalti? Avis?" she called out, squinting through the clutter and shadows. "Avis, if you're hiding in here, you're going to be in a great deal of trouble when I tell Onlal, you know that!"

Nothing.

It had to've been the wind distorting her voice or some such thing. But no wonder she was jumpy lately, what with the snowstorm and the soon-to-be evacuation and Utgar's foul hordes nearby...

Ah well. Best to focus on the present. Now where was that shovel? She walked around trailing along the walls, hoping to see it in an easily accessible place. After a few moments searching made it clear that this was going to be a long scavenger hunt, she started singing again, more softly this time, knees bobbing slightly in rhythm with it.

_Next comes the stocking_

_Of little Will_

_Oh just see_

_What a glorious fill_

_Here is a hammer_

_And lots of tacks_

_Also a ball_

_And a whip that cracks_

_Ho, ho... ho?_

Her song trailed off as she saw a large, dirty-looking leather sack in one corner that she was certain had never been there before. It looked to be full to the brim with odds and ends, too. Komthes had to be reorganizing things again, she decided, pursing her lips irritably. He _knew_ she hated it when he did that!

Huffing and seeing her breath crystallize in the air from it, she closed in on the offending bag and leaned down, and almost immediately regretted the action. The stench coming forth from the bag was positively horrific. Had Komthes just tossed old fertilizer in there? But there was a suspiciously shovel-shaped bulge down in the bottom... so, with a groan and a sigh, she opened the sack up and peered in.

In unpleasant addition to the gag-inducing stench, she couldn't see a single thing. It was like peering into a hole. But she supposed that was to be expected when she was indoors in a room without any candles or lanterns, when the sun wasn't even up. She really did wish they could afford a few more candles.

Eying the shovel-shaped lump suspiciously, she steeled herself and then plunged a hand down in it. This would only take a second, she hoped, and then she could glare angrily at Komthes afterwards until he apologized and cleaned the bag up properly. To her surprise she couldn't even get her hand to go down to the elbow, there was simply too much... stuff... in the way. Clinkly things, metallic-feeling things, wooden-feeling things, soft things, hard things, sharp things, dull things... she couldn't even begin to make sense of the eclectic jumble. And then her hand grasped something round and very very cold, and she grabbed it and brought it out of the sack in sheer confusion.

It was a ball of snow, even bigger than her head.

"I am _definitely_ going to have to ask Komthes about _this_," she muttered in bemusement, tossing the ball behind her back to let it roll over the floor while she dug into the sack once more.

She immediately felt _another_ snowball, and growled frustratedly, yanking it out and tossing it away with impatience.

And then a _third_ snowball.

This was _beyond_ idiotic.

The third one joined his two siblings on the floor behind her, and she swore to herself solemnly that if she found a fourth one, she was going to give up, go back inside, and yell extremely rude things at Komthes even if she had to wake him up for it.

Instead, her hand gripped something promising, for a change, something smooth and hard and wooden, about as thick as a shovel's handle would be. Grinning in triumph, she tightened her grip and gave a mighty yank, and pulled out...

...a pair of large sticks, each equipped with twigs on one end apiece.

Elzra said a very bad word that she would have never uttered anywhere near the children, and plunged her hand in for the fifth time, grabbing things at random and throwing them out. A brightly-colored box, a bronze helmet, what looked like a fuzzy, well-preserved dead squid... finally, she just tipped the bag over and tried to pour everything out. But there was so much in it that it all simply got stuck. Now eying the thing as though it were her mortal enemy, she gave it a kick, and her eyes and mouth opened in wide, happy surprise as a shovel promptly sailed out to land on the floor with a gentle clatter.

"Thank goodness! You silly little thing, why were you hiding on nice, pretty miss Elzra for so long?" she cooed at it, grinning as she grabbed it up in both hands and cradled it close.

Huh. It wasn't the shovel she'd been looking for, after all. This one was _much_ heavier and more battered than their normal one. Still, a shovel was a shovel.

Humming the unfinished chorus of her little human song, she got straightened up and started to walk outside, when she saw one of the very same sticks she'd discarded so carelessly emerge from within the darkness and bend finger-like twigs to grasp at the shovel's handle.

She hadn't the time to do more than blink before the shovel was pulled from her grasp and slammed into her temple with deadly force.

Fortunately, that first blow knocked her unconscious, so she wasn't awake to be aware of what happened next.

Which was substantially worse.

--

Drake was used to being woken up rudely, or by the sound of imminent danger. He was a soldier, after all. But being torn slumber by the sound of a child's high-pitched scream was new and infinitely disturbing even to him.

One moment, he was dozing soundly, dreaming of Kyrie dancing on the heads of pins. The next, he heard the scream. And the moment after that, he was on his feet, snatching and unsheathing his sword. Life had not yet given him reason to regret his habit of sleeping in his uniform, and it seemed that the trend was intent on continuing.

It had come from the dining room... he was the only one close enough to have been woken by it, having taken a couch and allowed Sullivan the one remaining bedroom. The doors and walls of the whole building were close to totally soundproof in their thickness.

Judging by the bare slivers of illumination, it was still early morning. He didn't bother trying to wake anyone up. Whoever that was needed help, and if _he_ couldn't handle it, they'd be in a hell of a lot more trouble than he wanted to contemplate at the moment. So he simply ran, and was at the dining room in an instant.

He recognized Lily instantly simply by here dark silhouette as she stood motionless, staring out a window that overlooked a hibernating, snow-covered garden. Some of the quickest, longest steps he'd ever taken in his life brought him to her side, and he looked her over quickly for injuries. Nothing, so far as he could tell. What was she staring at?

He gripped her shoulder gently, and she didn't even react. "Lily? Lily... c'mon, be a brave girl and tell ol' Sarge what's wrong..."

And then he _saw_ what was wrong, what she'd been staring at with such fixed horror.

Out in the garden, up against the wall, was a large ball of snow. And then a slightly smaller one atop it. Judging by the indentations in the snow around them they'd been packed up from the snow nearby. On top of the second ball of snow was Elzra's decapitated head, and stuck into the same snowball's sides were her arms, buried in enough so that they would project straight outwards without drooping.

At first, Drake was sure it had to be some kind of incredibly sick joke. Someone had made wax impressions or something. But then he saw the blood dribbling down, staining the white ice crystals, and he knew it was real.

And despite himself, for a short while he just couldn't do anything other than stare along with Lily and be horrified alongside her. Anyone cynical enough to take _this_ sort of thing in stride was not someone Drake ever wanted to meet.

Then his brain snapped back into working order, and he frantically started to think. Who could have done it? Not the Anubians... it wasn't their style at all. For that matter, if _any_ of Utgar's forces had arrived, they would currently be fending off an attack. But they weren't. So it wasn't that. Which meant it had to be some kind of... lone murderer acting on his own.

There had been a third adult Kyrie around Drake hadn't met... what had Onlal said his name had been? Komthee? Komthet? Komthes. Komthes could be it. Or perhaps even, revolting though the thought was, Onlal herself. It wasn't as though one of the _children_ could have done it, and no one else could have gotten through the snowstorm to make it here. Either Komthes or Onlal had to be murderously insane... and hiding it well. Unless _Sullivan_... but no, that was too ridiculous for Drake to contemplate even given the current limited options for suspects.

But, first things first. He knelt down and hugged Lily comfortingly, feeling her tiny little sleeping gown-clad body shake against his chest. "Don't worry, Lily... it'll be alright, I promise. No one's going to hurt you. Now I want you to come with me... we're gonna go wake up Mr. Sullivan so he can keep you safe. Okay? Okay?"

She nodded hesitantly at the second prompting, and gripped his hand tight as they walked together over to the stairs. Drake had never felt so scared in his entire life... not for his own sake or that of the mission... or even because there was a crazy person hacking people up and making gory snowmen out of them... but because he knew this place was filled with over a dozen helpless little children that couldn't defend themselves, and he didn't have enough men to protect every last one of them effectively if someone felt like trying to cull their numbers.

He took the steps quickly but not too quickly, knowing that running would only panic the girl who was depending on him to be a stalwart, calm autority figure in control of the situation. Even if he wasn't.

The children would have to be all gathered together in a safe, secure place... it was the only way Sullivan could protect them all. That needed to be done, just in case, while he figured out whether Komthes or Onlal was the killer... or _both_ of them, for that matter.

He hated having to think like this. He hated having to suspect someone who'd come off as very pleasant, able, and hospitable as being a murderess. He hated being stuck in the middle of a mansion due to be attacked by Utgar's men as soon as the unnaturally intense snowstorm dropped off.

This was supposed to be a _simple_ mission, dammit!

He gave Sullivan's door a single sharp knock before bursting in, Lily in tow. The lawman was clad in old-fashioned, ragged cotton pajamas, complete with a nightcap, which Drake grabbed and flicked in Sullivan's face until he woke up mid-snore with a blurred "Whuh? Whuzzat?"

"Sullivan, there's been a murder," Drake said softly but intensely, his voice lowered enough so that Lily hopefully wouldn't hear.

Sullivan went from drowsy to totally awake as soon as the sentence was finished. He showed it in different ways, but he was just as much a disciplined fighter as Drake.

"Shit. Have Utgar's-" he began, jumping out of bed.

"No, it's nothing like that. There's no attack going on, the storm is still blowing like there's no tomorrow. It _has_ to be Onlal or Komthes... it was Elzra that was killed. There's no one else who could've done it."

"Shit," Sullivan said again, more fervently, digesting the information and not liking it anymore than Drake himself did. He was pulling on his clothes without even taking his pajamas off, either for Lily's sake or because he didn't want to take the time.

"Take Lily and round up the rest of the kids and take them to the... the place they were all painting yesterday. Make it seem like a fun activity or something. Keep them safe while I figure out whether it was Komthes or Onlal and I have everything under control."

"That poor woman..." Sullivan murmured with geniune regret before Drake slid Lily's hand over to him. "Okay, honey, we're gonna go wake up all your friends and go play a little game, alright? It'll be fun."

She was silent as she'd been since screaming.

"She saw the body," Drake said quietly, and gave the man a moment to let it sink in.

"Dun' talk 'bout me like m'not here!" Lily said with such surprising indignant loudness that Drake and Sullivan both jumped a little.

"I'm sorry, Lily," Drake said sincerely. "We're not ignoring you on purpose, there's just a lot of things us adults need to get done right now... so, go with Mr. Sullivan and be a good girl, okay?"

She hesitated at the doorway, looking nervous. "Don't I get a weapon?" she asked him after chewing her bottom lip for a moment. "T'protect me from the bad person?"

Drake blinked, a sudden disturbing thought occurring to him. "Lily, you didn't... _see_... the bad person, did you?"

She shook her head no.

After thinking a moment, Drake pulled out his second pocket knife and gave it to her. All the blades were dull and small, it wasn't a very big risk giving it to her. "There you go. A real soldier's knife, just in case the bad man comes. But don't think that means you can go away from Mr. Sullivan, okay? Do what he tells you."

She seemed satisfied, clutching the pathetic little tool to her chest as though it were a holy symbol or a teddy bear. "Okay."

"Now, I've gotta go find the bad man. Be good for Mr. Sullivan."

She nodded her assent and went off with Sullivan. And Drake went off on his own course towards Onlal's room, but as soon as they were out of sight, he broke into a flatout run. She'd told him where she was in case he needed anything during the night; he had no idea where Komthes was.

He didn't knock so much as hammer on the door. It was probably the most abuse the ornately-decorated piece of wood had ever seen since being cut from the original log.

"Onlal? Onlal, wake up! It's urgent!"

He heard footsteps, so he stopped and waited. They were fumbling, unsteady, the sort you'd expect from someone who'd been rudely woken up and was trying to hurry despite the disorientation.

Her appearance as she opened the door seemed to support that theory. Her hair was disheveled, and her nightrobe looked like it had been hastily thrown on, and kept slipping down on one shoulder.

"S-Sergeant, what's the matter?" She looked sleepy, confused, and a little frightened.

Either she wasn't guilty, or she was a _very_ good actress.

"You should get dressed. Elzra's been murdered," he said very blankly, watching her closely for any unusual reactions. Her face only showed appropriate shock and horror, paling almost bone-white. "I'm having Sullivan take care of the children, but this isn't Utgar's work. Where does Komthes sleep?"

"W-well, he, he normally sleeps down in the room next to the, the um, kitchen, but you won't find him there right now..."

Drake's eyebrows rose and he was about to ask the obvious question when he noticed a faint snoring coming from beyond the doorway. A faint, masculine snoring. He pulled the door a bit wider and looked in to see a muscular, farmboy-looking Kyrie man, presumably Komthes, sleeping like a log. Though the blanket was forunately arranged so that Drake couldn't see much, it was still fairly obvious that he was naked as the day he was born.

Drake looked back at Onlal, who despite the terrible situation, somehow still had enough modesty left in her to blush red as an apple all over her face, as well as a little of her neck.

"He was with you all night?" Drake asked very, very blankly.

"Y-yes," she said quietly, looking down at the floor. "Oh my God, poor Elzra, I can't believe she's... we've known each other for years..." she started to babble, her voice getting higher and more stressed as she went on. She was about to break down and have herself a good crying fit, at the very least. But they didn't have time for that.

"Stop that," Drake hissed, grabbing her shoulders. It seemed to shock her out of it. "I know it's a horrible thing that's happened, but you need to be strong right now. If the children see you like this they'll panic."

"The, the children... of course... I'm s-sorry, Sergeant..." she said, sniffling and wrapping herself back up in composure like a cloak. Meanwhile, Drake's mind worked frantically.

Komthes had spent the night with Onlal. They were, therefore, either in it together, which would make both of them sickeningly good at faking innocence... or there was someone else they didn't know about roaming around.

The only other options were to consider Sullivan and the children suspects, and Drake _refused_ to do that. He felt dirty enough as it was just suspecting Onlal. Mind made up that they couldn't have done it, he made a decision.

"Another Kyrie... or something else... must have flown through the storm to get here. Wake up Komthes and go meet Sullivan down in that painting room. Keep the kids safe. I'm going to search this place from top to bottom until I find the person... or _thing_... that did this."

He only waited long enough for her to nod before striding off back downstairs, just in time to see the tail-end of Sullivan's orderly line of children vanish through a doorway. They were holding hands.

He'd see Elzra again first. Or what was left of her. There might be clues. And wasn't there some kind of shed out there? That would be a potential hiding place for the murderer...

Drake _hated_ planning for an enemy he couldn't even see.

--

She kept turning the knife around and around in her hands, feeling the handle, feeling the little knobby metal bits that helped for pulling out the different pieces. But there was only one bit she cared about, only one bit that she pulled on to open up, while she followed Mister Sully-van and the other, stupid kids followed her. The bit with the big long knifey part. It wasn't very big, and she couldn't even cut her dress with it (she'd tried, really hard), but Sarjent had given her something to keep her safe from the bad person, and he wouldn't have given it to her if it didn't work. So she kept it close, and kept one finger close to the knob for the knifey part, ready to open it like a flash.

The other kids were dumb. They were whining and crying and yelling and being so _loud_, like they always were. They didn't understand that Mister Sully-van was doing this to keep the bad person away. They didn't know that Miss Elz-rah was a snowman now.

_Was_ it snowman? Snowlady? Snowkyrie?

At least the bad person didn't give her a carrot nose.

Lily knew that Miss Elz-rah was dead, gone away from her body like she'd been told happened to everyone... gone, so that they didn't make sounds or do anything anymore. She'd never seen any real dead people before, but she didn't think it was supposed to be like that. She thought they were supposed to be all... together, still.

Only a very bad person could have done that, she knew. Miss Elz-rah hadn't never hurt no one. Even Lily li-... even Lily didn't _hate_ her. No one hated Miss Elz-rah. Most of the dumb kids really liked her. Who would want to make her dead like that?

She wondered when Mister Sully-van would tell everyone that Miss Elz-rah was gone. Maybe never? He didn't seem like he wanted to. He just wanted to do what Miss Elz-rah had been doing... teaching them things and making them laugh... only he _wasn't_ Miss Elz-rah, and everyone knew it, even the _really_ dumb dumb ones.

She could tell them, but she didn't want to. She hoped, a little, that if she didn't say it, maybe it wouldn't be real.

She shivered and clutched at herself, looking over to see what was suddenly making her so cold. The window was open, just a little, and some wind was coming in. She closed it with an indignant huff, then blinked as her arm bumped into something. Someone had put a cute little box on the table next to the window. It was all bright paint, red and orange and green and yellow, with a twirly handle sticking out of the side. She picked it up, wonderingly, then wrinkled her nose in disgust at the weird smell. It smelled really sweet and really sour at the same time, like the time Komthes had tried to make staykanahpulsirprize and messed up real bad.

A pair of annoying familiar hands grabbed the box from her rudely.

"Hey, that's mine!" she snapped, glaring up at the dumbest dumb kid, Antolgir. He was always being mean to her and grinning that stupid dimply way. "Give it back or I'm tellin' Sully-van."

"Boohoo, big cry baby, go cry s'more," Antolgir said sneeringly, eyes rolling in scorn. "I'll give it back, baby. I just wanna _look_ at it."

She was about to protest, but then something about the smell on it made her not like it anymore. It smelled like... something bad. Danger. So she just scowled and watched Antolgir smirk and toss the box around and tug at the handle. After some experimenting, the dummy figured out you were s'posed to turn it around and around. A little music played, and everyone nearby got all fascinated... but Lily played it cool. _She'd_ heard that kind of music before... _she'd_ come from a place where they had jacks in boxes. It was _always_ that poppy weasel song.

It sounded a little weird this time though, from this jack in box. Kinda creaky and... off.

Oh well. He wanted the stupid broken jack in box, _she_ didn't care.

Nothing would probably even pop out, she bet.

Or maybe something nasty would pop out and poke 'im in the eye. That would be great. Mister Sully-van was too busy on the other side of the room to do anything anyway. She grinned and watched, daydreaming of righteous retribution for months of bullying and teasing and hurtful nicknames.

It got to the 'pop' part of the song, and she tensed in anticipation...

And a big hairy monster popped out on a coily spring, and chomped off Antolgir's face.

Blood got all over Lily's dress, and all over some of the other kids, too.

Lily couldn't scream, this time.

Antolgir couldn't scream, because he hadn't anything to scream with anymore.

But the other kids screamed enough for both of them.

--

He couldn't afford the time to bury her properly at the moment, but he _did_, at least find an empty box to put her arms and head in, and demolish the balls of snow.

The tracks in the snow were odd and unhelpful. A single set of footprints led _to_ the shed, but not back from it. The only other impressions in the snow were large, rounded holes about scattered all about. Drake couldn't make anything of it.

But there was still the shed itself, with its door constantly banging in the wind... where, unless he missed his guess, the rest of poor Elzra would be. Steeling himself, he started to walk over to it when a faintly-heard chorus of high-pitched screams drifted through his hears.

Jesus _Christ_, not again...

Drawing his sword, he raced back inside, took a brief instant to pinpoint the location of the screams (the room he'd told Sullivan to put the children in, or very close to it, oh _crap_), and ran towards it like a bat out of hell, ready to kill or be killed. But more the former than the latter.

He burst into a room full of frightened children and three equally frightened adults. This only frightened the children more, of course, and half of them wailed louder while the other half started crying. Some of them were fluttering desperately as if trying to get away by flying through the ceiling. Drake didn't even have to glare at Sullivan and demand to know what the hell was going on... what was going on was obvious and in plain sight, right on the floor in front of him.

One of the kids had been mutilated horribly. About a third of his skull, the face part, was just... gone. The kid was dead, he knew instantly. No movement. Not even a chance of survival, not after _that_.

And next to the dead kid was a small, colorful jack in the box. Only instead of a doll or clown or something, it had a hairy, Anubian-esque... thing. With blood all over it. The kid's blood, and its own, from about two dozen bullet wounds. Drake could still see some of the kid's scalp peeking out between the fanged jaws.

Sullivan was walking over while Komthes and Onlal were tending to the children, trying to calm them down. Which was a remarkable feat given that the grown-ups were just as freaked out as the kids. They just didn't _show_ it quite so much.

Sullivan was as close to crying as Drake had ever seen the man. It was a shocking sight. He looked... broken. Eyes shiny with moisture that he kept blinking back, a face that twitched slightly and constantly, frail as an eggshell holding back a tsunami of emotion. Trembling hands that clutched his hat like a lifeline. A voice lowered so that the children wouldn't hear, but not lowered enough that Drake couldn't hear the strain in it.

"I... I was just getting' everyone all settled in like, an-and the boy found a little toy... I didn't see it until he was halfway done winding it, and even th-then I didn't think much of it. I mean, a toy, Drake... for Christ's sake, it was just a fucking _toy_..."

"It had to've been planted here," Drake said quietly. "The killer's in the house, or... or he used the window. Either way it's not safe for them here."

He strode over to Onlal and spoke in her ear while she cradled a sobbing, wailing child. "What's the safest room in this building?"

"The... the cellar, I suppose. There's no way, um, no way in or out except for the main stairs to it with a pretty solid door in the way, and no windows or things like that, and it's not used for anything so it's just bare and clean, a l-little, a little dusty maybe." Like Sullivan's voice, her voice was strained almost to breaking, but she was keeping it together. For the kids. Everyone was holding on for the kids. God knows they'd _all_ be a lot more hysterical without the little ones to look after.

Himself included.

But a mission was a mission, and duty was duty, and those things would provide him a comforting framework to work within and allow him to distance himself from his emotions.

Kid-murdering monster toys.

God, this was so fucking sick and wrong on an infinite number of levels.

"Okay then. We're going to the cellar, all of us. And everyone's going to stay there until I catch this sick bastard. Once _that's_ done, and the living are safe, we can tend to the departed. Alright?"

"Y-yes, Sergeant..."

He wanted to tell her to call him Drake. It didn't feel right, using a position of authority on a woman in a situation like this. But he knew keeping his own walls up would help her keep _hers_ up, which would in turn help the children and keep them all safe as possible. So he let her call him Sergeant.

And he kept point while Sullivan guarded the rear, with Komthes to one side and Onlal to the other, and the children all huddled together in the middle like a frightened herd of deer that had just heard a suspicious noise. Drake did his best to tune out the questions and comments the children aired... whether or not the dead one was coming back, and what had happened, and why the toy had hurt him, and why they had just left him there on the floor... he _tried_, but somehow the words kept getting through despite his best efforts, and making him feel sick inside.

It wasn't until they were actually _at_ the cellar, and it looked reassuringly sturdy while not being too grim, that Drake realized he hadn't seen Lily yet in all the bustle. His gaze scanned through young heads anxiously, and there were wings sprouting behind every last one of them.

"Where's Lily? Lily, raise your hand," he said firmly, his voice effortlessly cutting through the babble and sounds of confusion, grief, and fright.

There was no hand raised.

Sullivan said a very bad word that would not ordinarily be said around young ones. "She must have ran off when... when it happened, and I didn't see in all the confusion. Dammit, I'm sorry, Drake. I'll go after-"

"_No_," Drake said in his best commanding officer voice. "You need to keep these ones safe. I'll find her, since I'm going to be roaming around anyway." Sullivan obviously felt horrible about it, and Drake didn't want the man to have to be the one to risk finding Lily dead instead of alive. He'd suffered enough.

God, he hoped the girl was still alive. He hadn't realized how fond of her he'd gotten to be until just now.

"But sir-"

"That's an _order_, Sullivan!" he barked. Then he sighed and softened his voice. "Johnny... this is how it has to be. Given how little we know of the threat, and how stealthy it seems to be, one of us _has_ to stay with them, as a last line of defense. I promise I'll do my best to bring her back safe and sound."

"Yes sir," Sullivan growled more than said, glowering bitterly.

Well, that was fine. Sullivan could hate him for it. He'd live despite. They'd _all_ live.

Hopefully.

Suddenly he found himself wishing he'd given the girl a better knife.

--

He'd been wrong about Sully-van keeping them safe. Adults were often wrong about fairly obvious stuff, Lily had noticed. But she wasn't mad about it.

She wasn't mad, but she was fed up.

And _she_ didn't want _her_ face chomped off.

Which was why she had run off away from the others and was curled up in the corner of one of the tiny little side rooms no one ever used for anything except tossing their junk in. Splinters from a barrel were poking into her arm, and a rusty spatula dangling from a rope on a shelf kept bonking her head, but it was okay. She just needed to be real quiet and wait. The bad people couldn't get you if they couldn't find you... and bad people were always impatient, so they didn't stay around one place too long. She just had to stay where she was and not be found, and the bad person would go away, and then she could come out again. With her face not chomped off.

She wished she could've found a room without a window. This room had a tiny one, showing all the white, white snow that frenzied through the air and buried the ground. But she didn't want to go out now that she'd found a good hiding place. One of the others might catch her, and they'd be mad. Or the bad person could catch her. So she tolerated the window and its snowy view, but she didn't like it. She tried to stay away from it, but every once in a while she couldn't help but glance out.

The fifth time she looked out (she counted, just for something to do), there was a snowman out there she hadn't seen before.

It was weird, but it _was_ just a snowman. She wasn't scared of any dumb inannymite objects. She must've just missed it in all the white anyway. It looked cruddy anyway... all ice crystaly with rough and sharp bits, not smooth like they were supposed to be. She liked the metal thing on its head, though. It looked like a helmet. And the shovel it was 'holding' plunged down into the ground was a cute touch.

She wondered who had made it. None of the kids had been allowed outside since the snow started, so it must've been one of the adults.

Maybe Miss Elz-rah.

Lily sighed and drooped, letting her eyes wander over the floor aimlessly. She was gonna miss Miss Elz-rah a little.

Not Antolgir though.

Lil bastard got what he deserved.

She smirked and brushed her fingertips over the stains in her clothes. Red made things go away... red had made her parents go away, and her sister, and her kitty cat. Red had been all around her that day... but it hadn't gotten her. She'd thought she would be safer here, in this weird place with all the winged people, but that was dumb, she realized.

The winged people, the Kyrie, they had red inside juuust like everybody else.

An idle glance outside the window again left her confused. Was the snowman... bigger, or was it just her imagining stuff? She imagined stuff pretty often, but it usually wasn't this real-seeming.

Usually.

It _was_ bigger, because it was _closer_. She could tell because the shovel was in front of the bush it had been behind a few minutes ago.

But that was dumb. Snowmen didn't move. It was just a bunch of ice and snow all balled up and put together to look like a person. That was all. The wind had blown it closer, that was it. The wind was real strong out there, judging by how the snowflakes flew around like crazy albino moths.

Just the wind.

She _made_ herself look away, and stare at the wall. She didn't blink for so long that her eyes started to hurt.

One more look, maybe.

Just one more.

Three times was good luck or something, wasn't it?

She anxiously glanced out the window out of the very corners of her eyes.

And went absolutely still as she saw the snowman was pressed _right up against the glass_.

She fumbled for the pocket knife and clenched it tight, unopened, in a fist as she watched the top ball, the 'head,' slowly turn all the way around so she could see the face.

Which was a dark, dark hole rimmed with jagged icicles for a mouth, and a big pointy icicle nose, and two red-burning coals for eyes.

The mouth grinned at her and blew against the glass, fogging it over. Then twig-like fingers scratched against the glass, tracing two large, squiggly letters into the fog.

**HI**

And then the snowman, which Lily knew now was a wicked, _evil_ snowman, maybe even the bad person that had taken away Miss Elz-rah and put out the monstery jack in box, lifted up its shovel in strong, slender wooden arms, and broke through the window with a crash that drowned out any sound Lily might've made.

She dropped the knife Sarjent had given her, and knelt down to grab it real quick before she ran. The knife was supposed to keep her safe... Sarjent was a real military person, he knew what people needed to stay alive, didn't he? She didn't want to be a snowman!

The evil snowman was crawling through the window now, its red-stained shovel going thumpity-thump-thump against the wall and floor as it tried to swing at her. With a hissing, moaning sound that was as much composed of anger as of fear, Lily got her knife and ran out of the room and down the hall as fast as she could.

But she couldn't even think of where to run _to_ when she heard the snowman following behind her, crashing through stuff and swinging that big shovel. It didn't _say_ anything... Lily wished it would, somehow, since it seemed smart enough to talk if it wanted to... but all it did was slide along with a sound like a blizzard crossed with cats scratching on a chalkboard. And somehow the fact that it was smart enough to talk, but _didn't_, scared her more than anything else.

She was never so glad to bump into someone in her life. She ran headfirst into Sarjent's big, solid as a rock body and immediately got behin him lickity-split.

"The evil snowman's tryin' t'kill me!" she shouted with an urgently pointed hand towards the threat, but Sarjent was already charging, sword swishing in the air. Lily grinned a little at the sight, sure that everything would be fine now.

At first the snowman tried to just run Sarjent over, but Sarjent sunk his sword into the snowman's neck. The snowman slowed down then, and its head bent but didn't fall off.

The snowman straightened his head and out of its mouth came a cold, cold wind, and a sound like crackling ice. But it didn't sound mad or hurt. It sounded like it was laughing. Sarjent looked a bit stunned by the cold... Lily was real glad she was _behind_ him... but he made ready with another swing. The snowman blocked it with his shovel, and then the two of them started dueling just like in the stories about pirates that Lily always liked.

The snowman's shovel kept getting cut up by Sarjent's sword, but the snowman was faster and stronger than Sarjent, who kept having to change positions to keep from being pushed back too far.

Sarjent was having more trouble than she thought he'd have. He looked like he was having more trouble than _he_ thought he'd have, too. She couldn't let him fight the evil snowman on his own, could she? That'd be selfish! She had a weapon _too_, and she was tired of running from stuff! He kept calling for her to get away, but screw that.

She opened it up to the biggest blade and charged with a pretty good imitation of what she guessed a pirate's warcry would sound like (something between a 'Yarrrrr!' and a snarling scream), finding an opening beside Drake and sinking her knife all the way to the hilt, with both hands tight around it, into the middle snowball.

She didn't even see the shovel come down and knock her all the way across the hall, it was so fast. It felt like she was flying, for a moment, and then she landed on the floor painfully, and her head hurt like... she vaguely recalled one of Sully-van's phrases... like a _son of a bitch_, too. Temporarily heedless of anything but the pain, she groaned and clutched her head. Her fingers came away reddish. She didn't know if it was _her_ blood, or some of the blood that had already been on the shovel. She tried really hard not to cry, even though it was just about the worst pain she'd ever felt, and felt slightly better about herself that she succeeded in this.

Sarjent!

Still sprawled across the floor, her eyes focused on the battle still going on. Nothing much seemed to have changed, except that the snowman still had her knife stuck all the way in him... and didn't seem to even _care_. The knife hadn't done _anything_ to it, it wasn't even slower or anything! The only red was on the snowman's shovel.

Sarjent wouldn't have given her a _useless_ weapon... he was supposed to be one of the good guys, and he seemed nice and didn't treat her like _too_ much of a kid. Plus, he was a _Sarjent_! Military! Everyone knew Sarjents were the toughest people in the military! He wouldn't have just given her a piece of junk and let her think it would protect her... would he?

The unvoiced question was answered for her as she watched the fight go on, and on... and the snowman never even took a second to pull out the knife from its body.

Red was starting to drip into her eyes from up on her head, but she was seeing a whole different kind of red now, teeth gritted. Such was her anger that she barely took any satisfaction from seeing Sarjent finally cut right down the middle of the snowman's head and send it crashing to the ground, dead and defeated. She saw, but she didn't see. She started having one of her creative moments where things looked different, all twisted around in reversed colors and coily, knobby shapes, but she didn't want to paint it out like she usually did. She just wanted to beat someone up.

Or maybe make a snowman.

Sarjent's voice came and she slipped into her usual bland expressionlessness easily, _too_ easily, like she always did no matter what she felt, just to avoid trouble.

"Jesus, sweetie, you shouldn't have ran in like that... are you okay? Does your head hurt?" He was wiping at her forehead with a hankie, and that made it hurt more, but the pain itself seemed almost irrelevant right now.

"Yeah," she replied mildly.

"I'm so, _so_ sorry... thank God you're safe now... are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Nope," she lied. Her whole body hurt some from falling on the floor, but she didn't want him fussing over her anymore. Irritably, she jerked her head away slightly. He allowed this, though frowningly.

"You shouldn't have ran away like that... but it's okay. You're safe now, and I got the bad person, and everybody'll be _so_ glad to hear that you're alright."

"Not everybody," Lily countradicted him sourly. "Just Miss Onlal. 'Cause she _has_ to be, it's like her job or somethin'."

"That's not true, Lily..."

Feh. It was a lie and they _both_ knew it.

He changed the subject. "You were very brave back there, though. Let's go to the others and tell them the good news, okay? You helped me defeat the bad person... uh, bad snowman... and you did a good job of it, too!"

She _hated_ being talked to like a little kid. She was eight and a _half_, dammit! She hadn't helped him. She _couldn't_ have, not with the stupid little not-a-weapon he'd given her.

He tried to hold her hand, and she made a fist.

They walked off, and the pocketknife was left behind, in the corpse of the snowman.

From now on, she decided, if she was gonna be safe, she needed a bigger knife.

--

Some of the children actually seemed glad to see Lily back, which warmed Drake's heart, by Lily didn't seem to notice them, or care if she did. Sullivan was the only one he informed about the bizarre nature of the killer while they all walked to the kitchen for a desperately-needed breakfast, children and all... and even _he_ looked at him askance.

"An evil snowman."

"Yes, an evil snowman."

"With a bloody shovel."

"With a bloody shovel. Literally."

"Goddamn, what's the world comin' to these days?" Sullivan wondered, shaking his head.

"Best not to know the answer, probably," Drake replied with a sigh. "Mistaken summoning, magical experiment gone wrong, or just a natural byproduct of Valhalla snow, who knows? It's for the higher-ups to worry about. Let's just get some food down these kids' throats before we bury the dead."

"Where're we gonna bury 'em? The snow's practically over our heads out there."

"It's not so bad in the garden. I'll ask Onlal if she's got any better ideas, of course..."

"A' course."

Everyone was crowding into the kitchen. The kids wanted food, and they wanted it _now_, and certainly weren't going to wait for the adults to cook and serve everything in a nice, orderly, normal fashion. So all four adults were occupied, not only in fixing food, but in keeping eager hands away from hot pots and sharp knives. Sullivan was apparently quite good at frying eggs. Drake, his culinary experience limited in the extreme, was reduced to slicing bread loaves and sausages into manageable portions. With all the cheerful bustle, one would be forgiven for thinking that two of their number had died this very day, with the corpses yet undisposed of. But it showed when Drake exchanged glances accidentally with Onlal or Komthes, in the slightly too long mutual stare that spoke of terrible strains held in and held in tight. And when the kids started arguing with each other heatedly over who _should_ have been first to play with the toy. Most agreed that Lily would have been a better candidate.

Drake was almost certain, though, that the worst of it was over until, out of the blue, one of the younger ones asked when Elzra was coming back. He hadn't steeled himself for more of that sort of thing, and nearly lost a finger on the next sweep of his bread knife.

But it would be okay.

It had been a horrible morning, but it was over, and everything would be alright now...

"I think there's something stuck in the chimney," Komthes called from the dining room. Smoke had started to drift in from there a few moments ago and he'd gone to investigate. "It's really backing up... ugh, it must be something big, I can't even see any light. Maybe all the snow's clogged up at the- _ARGH_!"

The sound of pain was accompanied by a huge thud and a sharp crack. Drake and the other adults, as well as about half the children, ran over to the dining room to see what had happened.

It was a very, very large fireplace, as much ornamental as practical. Which was why the hugely obese, red-garbed man didn't even need to hunch over to stare straight at them from within it as he straddled the flaming logs, black leather boots fighting off the flames effortlessly. Komthes's head was also in the fireplace, in a pool of blood that extended to those sturdy boots.

It was so unexpected and nightmarish that it took Drake a moment longer than it normally would have for him to gather in the details. And when he got _those_, it only enhanced the horror of the thing so as to make him hesitate even more.

The body was round in its fatness, large, and lumpy, covered with skin the color of a fish's belly, disfigured like a leper's, peppered with warts and discolorations. It wore a bright red robe trimmed thickly with white fur, but the robe was missing significant patches here and there, in no particular design or order, baring much of the man's unpleasant body to view. The thick belly bulged around a belt made of the same material as the boots, with a silver clasp. Yellow-brown horns, curved and sharply-pointed, sprouted from the shoulders straight through the robe, and a hat that matched the robe, tall and narrowing at the top, was perched on his head. The hat had what appeared to be a baby's skull on top. Just under that hat, a wide, ape-like face rested, with white eyebrows almost as bushy as the fur trim on his clothes, a smirking mouth filled with a multitude of square but overly large teeth, and eyes that never seemed to stay a single color from one moment to the next. Down the chin a long, dirty, tangled white beard crept, looking like something insectile or reptilian would skitter forth from its depths at any moment. One huge, hammy hand held a large brown sack.

It was... Santa Claus, in a twisted, horrific, but perfectly recognizable sense.

The 'Santa' had been examining them while they examined him, though with a disturbing expression of anticipation, rather than one of surprise like theirs.

And when he spoke, his voice was exactly as deep and terrible and mischievously jolly as Drake had expected it to be.

"Ho, ho, ho," he chuckled, his fat body quivering with it. "Hello, lil chil-drun. No one's been _nice_ this year... but that's okay... Klaus'll give you some presents _anyway_!"

His free hand plunged into the sack and tossed out, in defiance of all physics, dozens of stained, bloody white stockings that flew every which way. Snakes and spiders and other things Drake didn't look too closely at started crawling forth from each stocking as soon as it landed, hissing and chittering violent intentions. The children screamed and began to scatter, and Drake swore, drawing his sword at the exact moment that Sullivan drew his shotgun.

They exchanged glances for one of the briefest battle strategizing sessions ever before Drake nodded at the lawman to fire, while Onlal was busy gathering the kids together and trying to help them get away. It was a difficult task... impossible, almost, from the look of things.

Hopefully this walking blasphemy would be dead before it would matter. First an evil snowman, then an evil Santa... what in the name of God had he done to deserve _THIS_?!

Sullivan's first shot went wide and blew apart some of the wall next to the fireplace when a Kyrie child grabbed at the barrel of the gun, crying for them not to hurt Santa.

Klaus had eyes for the child, and lumbered toward him with heavy steps, walking straight over Komthes's body. Drake had wondered if Komthes was dead, but the distinctive crack as those boots walked over the neck answered that question for him. He shoved the kid behind Sullivan and well out of the way, too frightened for him to even try to be anything _close_ to gentle or delicate, and had his sword ready to chop at this latest enemy in an instant.

He didn't wait for the monstrous man to make the first attack. Instead, he took two measured steps forward and swung, aiming for the neck. To his shock, the fat even there was such that his blade only managed a shallow cut, sliding off the rest like it was greased. And then he was distracted by a snake trying to bite his ankle, and spent precious moments crushing its head under his heel.

Before he could react, Klaus's hand was in his face, smelling of death and decay, trying to gouge his eyes with dirty, cracked fingernails. He stumbled back and swung his sword wildly at the man's arm. It rebounded without even a scratch this time, but Klaus drew back slightly, just enough to give Sullivan an opening, and Drake watched bullets pepper Klaus's chest, about half of them drawing blood that boiled and steamed angrily at being shed.

Klaus let force a roar of pain that shook the windows, and Drake was smacked nearly a dozen feet away by the sack's seemingly irresistable weight as it was swung at his head, rolling over the table and landing on the opposite side of it.

His lack of proximity to the target gave Sullivan the chance to use his shotgun, though, and the firearm-wielder let out something between a warcry, a curse, and a hoot as he let loose a full blast straight into Klaus's face. The bellow Klaus let out this time made the first one sound tiny, and he dropped his sack to clutch at his face.

But something in the sack was _moving_... and by this time, Drake was far too shocked to be shocked much more when a small gang of mutilated teddy bears crawled out of it, hoisting various small but sharp weapons, everything from scalpels to picks to (in one particularly bizarre case) a cache of throwing stars. They hopped past Sullivan and Drake and went straight for the nearest children that were still scattered about.

He was quick enough to cut down the first teddy bear.

And the second.

Sullivan got the third and fourth ones.

The fifth and sixth ones got past them.

The kid who tried to save Klaus went down, screaming, as an axe-equipped teddy bear hacked away at his legs.

And the final teddy bear had its butcher knife torn from its fluffy paws and was cut to cottony shreds by a wide-eyed, snarling Lily.

By this time, Klaus had recovered, and he started running out of the room and after panicking children, laughing that hideous 'Ho ho ho' belly laugh of his. Sullivan checked the downed Kyrie child, then looked up at Drake with a despairing expression and a shake of his head.

Understanding that they'd lost that one, and grimly determined to not lose any more, Drake chased ran hot on Klaus's heels into the kitchen, where the man was trying to corner the girl Drake had noticed as being so excitable on his first sight of the children gathered in the painting room.

He swung at the back of Klaus's head, but he saw just in time to bat Drake's hand down into a pot of boiling water. With a cry of pain, Drake couldn't help but drop the sword, frantically reaching for it with his other hand as he shook the water off of his burnt one. He tried to sidle in between Klaus and the child at the same time, but only partially succeed as he and Klaus jockeyed for positioning.

"Come on, lil girl... let Klaus peel the meat from your bonessss... I'm dreaming of a reeeed Christmasssss..." he hissed with a waft of breath like sulphur, ignoring Drake entirely.

"You know what?" Drake addressed Klaus with a slightly hysterical voice. "I've got a different dream. I have a dream... of sitting down in a nice comfy chair, and watching the Anubians lick their chops after every delicious, juicy, syrup-soaked bite _of your MUTILATED CORPSE_!"

With that, he used his bad hand to lightly lift and toss a pot of syrup he happened to know to be _very_ hot directly into Klaus's eyes, swinging his sword with his other hand and seeing the blade bite deep into his enemy's belly.

He couldn't have known... couldn't have possibly even _guessed_... that Klaus, in his flailing, would simply crush the Kyrie girl against the wall and snap every bone in her body with his tremendous bulk, reducing her to a gory, messy lump of mutilated and dying flesh. There was no time for grief as Klaus fled, syrup dripping down into his beard. Drake could only chase after, snarling animalistically, hating this monster more than he'd hated anything in his entire life.

The sound of frightened children and adults frightened _for_ the children, panicked yells and shrieks and crashes and running feet, all met his ears. A couple children were still around, cowering under furniture or clinging to rafters, small wings flapping schizophrenically without the slightest coordination. And Lily was still there, hacking away at the stockings and the things that crawled out of them, and sometimes accidentally stabbing someone's limbs when they got too close to her, and not seeming to care. She was screaming about the red man coming to make her go away, utterly hysterical, but hysterical in the same way a berserker would be. Sullivan was trying to get her to calm down, but the various stab wounds on his hands, feet, arms, and legs attributed to his lack of success in that area. But he kept trying.

Klaus hopped over all the little vermin on the floor, roaring like a dragon crossed with a banshee, and snatched Lily up by the back of her neck like a kitten. Before Lily could do more than scream in a single clear, piercing, high-pitched note, he had shoved her into his sack and closed it up.

And for all the motion or lack thereof the outside of the sack had, it was as though it had devoured her whole and utterly.

Screaming himself now, Drake charged Klaus with his katana gripped tight in both hands, heedless of his burns now. A single stroke, clean and cold and perfect as the void of space between every star, leapt into his mind and moved his hands, and he was a barest moment away from hacking Klaus's head off his fat, horned, lumpy shoulders.

Would he have been able to kill Klaus if he had completed the strike?

He would never know, because, at that moment, as though to perfect the impossibly nightmarish scenario, countless Anubian Wolves broke through every window nearby and streamed through, snow pouring from their shaggy pelts, eyes wide, tongues lolling, teeth agape and throats filled with hungry snarls.

"What the _fuck_?!" Drake cried out helplessly, just barely turning in time to slash the chest of an Anubian lunging for him. Klaus was likewise assaulted, and the sheer numbers of the Anubians meant that there was possibility for anyone to do any but defend themselves from ferocious, furred assailants.

"They must've ran _through_ the goddamn storm all this time!" Sullivan shouted, causing an Anubian's head to explode like an overripe melon with a well-placed shotgun blast.

But no matter how many they killed, more poured into the room. It was a hopeless battle. He and Sullivan managed to work their way over to the doorway and held their position at that spot, back to back, covered in blood both theirs and not, their skin punctured from fangs and turn from claws. Klaus was too surrounded to even move, though he seemed to be holding his own for the moment.

"Sullivan! Let's get together what survivors we can! We've got to get the hell out of here!"

"Through that storm?!"

"We've got no other choice at this point!"

They killed countless Anubians, and lost so much of their own blood in the process that they stopped worrying about their own injuries anymore just to keep on functioning, as they marched the halls and rooms as best they could, snatching up scattered children. They found Onlal in the midst of hiding a child in a closet, and she nearly brained Drake with a bloodied frying pan before seeing who he was. She had plenty of bites on her arms, probably from trying to protect the children, but none of them seemed too serious. She'd have scars if she lived through this, though.

They all would.

They fought their way to the garden, Onlal helping a surprising amount for someone who was, according to Drake's mission briefing, a pacifist. Drake and Sullivan climbed over the wall while the Kyrie flew, and all managed to squeeze through the tight space into the outside world, though some of them with more difficulty than others. The humans had fingers bloodied and frostbitten, and had difficulty scaling the wall, but neither of them complained. Still, they were grateful when Onlal gripped them and tried to lift them up a bit to help their progress. Even if she was too weak to make any real difference.

They managed to work their way around the small army of Anubians and, with the help of Drake's compass, get themselves in roughly the right direction to find the fort and the safety that was within it.

If the snowstorm had kept up throughout their journey, most of the children, as well as Drake and Sullivan, would have more than likely succumbed to the weather and perished. Fortunately, the further they went, the more the bone-white snow and wailing winds seemed to lighten their grip on the land. The snow started out at Drake's head, and he and Sullivan had to more or less burrow along, with the help of the Kyrie. Half an hour later, it was at their chests, and they could talk to each other without having to yell over the howling winds. An hour after that, it was at their waists, and the wind had dyed off entirely. By the time they arrived at their destination, the snow was merely a light coating on the ground that added a little variety of color to the grass and dirt it clung to.

Their charges... which at this point consisted of Onlal and five Kyrie children too cold and stressed out to be much more than comatose in an obediently mobile sort of way... were hurried indoors to tend to their wounds, warm them up, and be fed. After having their own wounds tended to, Sullivan drifted off quietly, presumably to brood, and Drake, after refusing food with a queasy feeling in his stomach and a lump in his throat, went to see Lord Shaithis and get the debriefing over before he went to go curl up in a blanket and quiver for a bit.

Before he could even get to the entrance to the tunnels, though, he was very nearly pounced on by Raelin.

"Great gods above, Alexander, I'm so-"

He held up a hand wearily. "I'm sorry, Raelin, but I've been through a lot recently, and I'd like to just get this debriefing through before I completely collapse. We'll talk later, alright?"

"Sergeant... Drake, please, listen to me," she said with a quivering voice. The tone caught his attention, and he looked at her clearly for the first time, surprised to find her eyes bright with tears.

"I... I spoke with John Sullivan, a very little... I know what you faced out there. The monster that attacked you and the children. And I regret to say it is... it is all my fault."

He wanted to scream something outraged and appropriate. Something like 'WHAT?!' But he couldn't. He just didn't have the energy anymore. So instead he simply straightened his spine and listened blankly.

"I was... thinking, thinking very _hard_ of a way to make you more at home in this world. And the thought came to me, that perhaps... perhaps if I could bring a little piece of your winter celebrations to you, some person or thing connected with it, it would do you good, and do good for the morale of all the humans in Jandar's army."

She swallowed noisily, looking more upset than he'd ever seen her, and then steeled her face into the disciplined, calm expression he saw her use in difficult times on the battlefield.

"Lord Shaithis said that he'd been studying the great summoning magics, a little, under Jandar's tutelage. He said that he could bring something from your home to you, something connected to your winter celebrations. I encouraged him... he said it was risky, but I encouraged him. I was not present for the ritual itself, but what arrived... it was horrible. I saw it flee, in a great sleigh driven by horned furry beasts that flew without wings. Lord Shaithis had not been able to contain it, though by all accounts he had placed the strongest of wards around the place of summoning. And all the hardship you and Sullivan have suffered... and all the pain... and all the death... it was all, all at _my_ suggestion, at _my_ bidding! I can never express in words how much I despise myself for undertaking such a risky endeavour for such petty reasons, Drake. I am... I am _so_ sorry..."

And as Drake watched Raelin break down completely, not like the warrior-woman he'd known her as, but like any weak civilian incapable of dealing with the hardship of warfare and violence and death, he knew what he had to do to fix things.

Enough suffering had been had by enough people already.

Raelin didn't need to suffer too.

Raelin should be happy.

Even if he had to lie a little to get her that way.

Hesitantly at first, then with greater assurance, he embraced her, hugging her gently to him, arms awkwardly avoiding the wings.

"Hey, it's okay... it's okay, Raelin. Really. We bled a little, sure, and it was crazy for a while, but..."

Her eyes looked up at him questioningly, tears wet on her cheeks.

"No one died," he lied with absolute, flawless sincerity. The sort of sincerity that comes from truly wanting to believe the lie you speak.

She blinked, her expression one of almost but not quite too frightened to be hopeful. "No one? You mean... you, and the children, and the others there, they all made it here alive?"

"Yeah. They all made it, Raelin. It's okay."

It was the first time he'd ever lied to anyone on Valhalla.

And he regretted it not one bit as Raelin's fragile, tear-streaked face broke into a hesitant smile.

--

Things poked into her. Things grabbed at her, and groped her, and licked and nibbled her. The sounds... the sounds were all a jumble, too many of them, too many different kinds, so loud and so soft. She couldn't see anything, and that made it worse... all the slimy, wet things, the sharp things, the cold and hot things, the gibbering and jabbering and screaming and snarling and laughing, none of it was really identifiable, but all of it was so incredibly _familiar_.

Bad things.

Bad, bad things.

The man in red had come to take her away, and this was where people went when they went away. If she looked long enough, she was sure she could find Miss Elz-rah here, and lots of others too.

At first she just curled into a little ball and prayed for God to make it all better, but then something bit her ear and she remembered she had a knife, and she didn't need God to make it all better.

So instead of praying, she stabbed. She stabbed and stabbed and stabbed some more, and got coated with warm sticky wetness that was probably red if she could only see it, and kept on stabbing.

She lived out a whole life stabbing things in that dark void. She lived out another life climbing over the stuff she couldn't stab, and a thousand lives screaming to try to drown out the horrible noises all around that never went away.

Eventually, one of her slashes with the knife tore a blindingly white slit in the blackness. She stared, confused, and then remembered... out there was escape, and safety. Out there everything would be alright. So she pulled the slit bigger and climbed out through the hole, and there was a brief look at a big wooden sleigh before she tumbled over its edge and fell. She fell a long way, so quick that she couldn't tell where she was.

The next sensation was a soft crunching thud as her body slammed through a thick layer of snow and hit the ground. It hurt a lot, but she didn't mind too much... she could still move fine, and she wasn't bleeding.

What she _did_ mind, though, was that the weird noises hadn't stopped. They were getting _louder_, in fact. And she could _see_ the things making the noises now, and the things touching her... they were crawling all around the snow, writhing, hopping, with their gaping jaws and glowing eyes and wagging tongues.

She stabbed one of them in the eye absentmindedly, and watched in mild pleasure as its eye squirted green liquid as it ran off.

Other things were coming, too. Furry things.

Anubians, they were called.

Anubian Wolves.

They ate people.

They didn't seem to be eating the monsters all around, though, even though the monsters were climbing on their furry backs and tugging at their furry ears and hissing nasty words up at their furry faces.

They didn't seem to be trying to eat _her_, either.

They were just walking closer... sniffing... circling her, looking confused and a little scared.

She was vaguely aware in the back of her mind that this was totally against their nature, but she couldn't be bothered with it. She was too busy pulling a bony rattlesnake with extra mouths where its eyes should have been off of her neck.

She was out of the sack...

But she was still _in_ the sack.

It didn't make any sense.

How was she supposed to escape if the sack was _everywhere_?

It was then that she remembered her knife again.

She gripped its wooden handle so tightly her knuckles turned almost as white as the snow around her.

The Anubians watched with cautious eyes, their mannerism close to reverent, their huffing breaths making clouds in the chill air.

Lily lifted up the knife, not in a pose to strike, but in a pose to let the light play off the blade and draw the attention of all the Anubians and monsters to it.

Eyes wide and unblinking, staring through tangled hair at the monsters only she could see.

And slowly.

Very slowly.

She grinned.


End file.
